


Learning to Let Go

by ironyscleverer



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, Forgiveness, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Katara Needs a Hug, Moving On, POV Katara (Avatar), Past Abuse, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug, seriously that's not a tag???, they need therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25675900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironyscleverer/pseuds/ironyscleverer
Summary: "“You have to admit, murder is a strange thing to offer someone,” she tilted her head, “especially if you want them to trust you.”Zuko was silent for a moment.“I guess because I’ve been where you are,” he said at last."or,a conversation on a bison.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 246





	Learning to Let Go

Zuko and Katara were silent on the ride back to camp. Katara sat slumped over the front of Appa’s enormous saddle, chin resting on her folded arms as she stared glumly into the clouds. Her mind was abuzz with the events of the past day, and she was still trying to sort out the multitude of conflicting emotions racing through her. 

Before, she had always considered herself a stark and uncomplicated person. So now, with this new cooking pot of emotions within her, she was floundering—completely out of her depth. The pure, deadly rage that had simmered within her for so many years was gone. Instead, to her horror, she was filled with a bubbling stew of disgust, anguish, confusion, loss, and something almost akin to pity. 

No. Not pity. She had let Yon Rha live, but certainly not out of the mercy or forgiveness that Aang had tried to talk her into. If anything, she decided, it was out of exhaustion. She was only just starting to realize now how much her anger had been draining her. For so long it had been eating her from the inside out, consuming her resources until she could no longer remember how it felt to be free of its cold grip. 

To put it another way, Katara was uncertain in that moment. Normally, she knew she was pretty cut and dry—she knew herself, and she was always confident in her feelings and opinions. But in this moment, in her confusion, she felt frighteningly vulnerable. Exposed. 

Katara let her eyes drift from the ocean up to the scene in front of her. Zuko was sitting at the bison’s head—hair whipping about in the wind, back rigidly straight, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Zuko… Her anger at him was fading, replacing itself with a wary curiosity. For all the time he had spent with their group, she had been far too furious to be the least bit interested in him. Now that she was too emotionally drained to maintain any semblance of real anger, a multitude of questions were beginning to bubble up in her mind.

Finally, she broke the silence. 

“Why did you do this for me?” 

Zuko jumped, nearly toppling from his seat on the bison. He fumbled at the reigns as he tried to regain his balance. 

“What? Um… well, I mean,” he stammered, unsure of what she was asking. Katara’s mouth twitched.

“You have to admit, murder is a strange thing to offer someone,” she tilted her head, “especially if you want them to trust you.” 

Zuko was silent for a moment. From where she was sitting, Katara could see that he had relaxed somewhat from his previous position. 

“I guess because I’ve been where you are,” he said at last. 

Katara snorted. “What, because you have anger issues, too?” Ok, maybe her spite wasn’t completely gone. 

Zuko’s shoulders jerked in a shrug. “That’s part of it. I was thinking more…” he trailed off. 

“Yes?” Katara prompted. 

“I just- Confronting the person who hurt you is a- is a powerful thing to do. Empowering, I mean.”

That was not what she had expected to hear, but Zuko went on. He seemed almost unable to stop himself. 

“What I mean is that confronting something that you’ve been running away from is hard. It’s really hard. But once you do, it’s like your whole world just sort of… opens up. And,” he took a deep breath, “I know that we’ve had pretty different experiences but I guess I just… saw myself… in… you.” 

His voice died away awkwardly. Though he had turned his head to speak, he was still determinedly avoiding Katara’s gaze. 

“Experience, huh?” Katara said tiredly. Despite the flicker of annoyance that had passed through her at his comparison of the two of them, she couldn’t bring herself to be upset.

“Yeah,” said Zuko. When Katara said nothing he shifted uncomfortably, but continued. 

“I uh… confronted my father. During the eclipse.” 

That got her attention. She sat up, her gaze sharpening.

“Why?”

Zuko rubbed his face nervously. “I wanted to tell him that I was through trying to please him. That I was done trying to earn his respect, and that I was going to find my own destiny by helping you guys to bring him down.” 

The words sat heavy between them. Katara was stunned. Until this moment she hadn’t considered the awkward family politics surrounding Zuko’s choice to join their group. The pieces began to slide into place, and a fragmented picture of his home life began to form in her mind. She did not like what it was suggesting.

“How did it go?” she asked hesitantly. 

Zuko laughed bitterly. “Worse than this.”

“Oh.” 

“He tried to kill me.” 

“Oh.” Katara didn’t know what to say. “Zuko—“

“But that wasn’t the point,” Zuko cut her off. “The point wasn’t his reaction. Confronting him was about me. About proving to myself that I could be my own person without him, even though he h-hurt me.” He faltered, stumbling over his words. Katara could see his head was bowed, and he was trembling ever so slightly. 

“That’s why I knew where you were coming from,” he finished quietly. “You needed to confront Yon Rha the same way I had to confront my father. He hurt you, and he has kept hurting you ever since, and you needed to- to-” 

“Leave him behind,” Katara finished. She sat back in shock. Zuko had managed to put into words something that she had been grappling with for their entire flight. Her fear, her exhaustion, her strange sense of guilt, all boiled down to one conclusion; It wasn’t just nameless, floating anger that had been holding her back. It had been Yon Rha himself. Ever since her mother had died, she had lived with his influence, his spirit standing over her every day of her life, gloating as she ground her teeth into dust. Her life had been permanently changed, tainted by one tiny, pathetic man. By sparing his life, she wasn’t forgiving him; She was dumping him. Banishing his ghost. 

But she was also startled by Zuko’s comparison between their experiences. She had never considered herself a victim of abuse, as Zuko seemed to be, but the way he phrased his words had winded her like a punch in the chest. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Even though Yon Rha was not physically there, she had felt his presence. Her agency over her own mind and body had been obscured. Looking back on the years following her mother’s death she could suddenly see how his actions had hung over her like a cloud, following her. 

With all of this laid bare before her, she felt more naked and vulnerable than ever. The world seemed suddenly so much harsher without the familiar warmth of anger by her side.

“It’s been so long,” she began, her voice achingly quiet. “I’m not sure I know what to do.” 

Zuko nodded. “It will be strange at first,” he said. “You’re going to feel like everything’s not quite real—spirits know I still feel that way.” 

“But what do I do?” Katara asked again. Her initial malaise was beginning to wear off, replacing itself with the same, brusk efficiency that had always been there, the same desire for control. The only difference was that it was now beginning to feel suspiciously like panic.

“If you want to know the truth,” Zuko said, “I don’t know. I try my best to keep it together and do the right thing, but it’s still hard. I still go to sleep at night thinking I might wake up and be back home. But every day I wake up and I’m still here. I’m still training Aang and sparring with Sokka. And every day that goes by feels a bit more real, and every day before feels more like a dream.”

Katara nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. She thought about her life, and what was coming down the road. She thought of Aang—poor, sweet Aang—and how the world was asking him to do the impossible at only thirteen years-old. She thought about how he was waiting for her back at camp, praying for her, and hoping she would find peace. Even after everything he had suffered at the hands of the Fire Nation, he was still relentlessly, stubbornly peaceful and kind. It was his little way of rebelling against the world, of clinging to the community that he had lost. 

As she thought about the unfairness of it all, her thoughts hardened into steely resolve, just as they always did; She had a responsibility to her friends, but most importantly to Aang: as his teacher, his friend, and maybe even as something more. This trip had torn open parts of her that had been frosted shut. But now that they were exposed, she she didn’t have time to deal with the contents. Even if she had all the years of her life left, admitted to herself, she probably wouldn’t have that sort of time. She would simply have to do her best. She would not fall apart.

“I guess we just sort of… keep on living,” she said at last. 

“Yeah,” Zuko replied. He seemed to have had a similar thought process. 

And with that, the two were silent once more. With steady strokes of his tail, Appa flew steadily into the unknown.

**Author's Note:**

> So... That's been plaguing me for a little while. I'm so happy that people are suddenly getting into Avatar again. I think Zuko and Katara are actually very similar characters in terms of temperment/emotional range. They're both stubborn and headstrong and angry, and they really care about doing the right thing. I suspect Zuko would also be a lot more affectionate like Katara had he grown up in a loving environment. But yeah, that's part of the reason I don't ship Zutara... they're just too alike to be a good couple.


End file.
